Imaginary Locomotives

[JimC]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

 if there had been hundreds of steam engines carrying on the corporate image would probably not have been to paint them the same blue as the diesels, and indeed the diesels might not have been blue either.

Agree. The blue was only really practical because there were no longer all those self cleaning smokeboxes belching out filth. I do wonder how much longer an increasingly middle class and white collar workforce would have carried on using a steam railway.

[PenrithBeacon]

31 minutes ago, JimC said:

Agree. The blue was only really practical because there were no longer all those self cleaning smokeboxes belching out filth. I do wonder how much longer an increasingly middle class and white collar workforce would have carried on using a steam railway.

Deep Bronze Green was specifically developed to cope with the environment of the steam railway. Rail Blue went, I believe, through at least one iteration before it came to the version used in the 70s

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, John Besley said:

Steam maintenance would have been centralised at one place and possibly keen steam crews would have transferred instead of working diesels so a core like minded staff would have ended up on steam...

It wasn't the crews, but the shed staff that caused the problem. One of my uncles, a Passed Fireman at Cambridge, summed it up that "no-one ever became an engine cleaner with the intention of remaining one". With the end of steam, those skills disappeared - and the workforce with them. 

[Murican]

So far for now, my idea is to have for the LNER: six P2 Mikados, six W2 4-6-4s, and eight I1 Mountains.

 

Does that sound reasonable? That is if we have Peppercorn immediately follow Gresley and create an I2 Mountain instead?

Edited July 11, 2021 by Murican

[PhilJ W]

I wonder how long some of the modern light coloured liveries would fair if we still had steam.

[The Johnster]

The 'corporate identity' was a very strong part of the 'British Rail' rebranding, and was an all encompassing image and font that covered everything from locomotives to plastic teaspoons and exanded poly cups.  Any steam locos in a world in which they were not a temporary fixture in 1966 would surely have been given the corporate identity, which would have meant plain blue livery with the arrows of indecision and the D400 type of font for numbers.  I would imagine that smokeboxes and everything that was painted black prior to 1966 would still be painted black, but there is a possibility that the brown used on loco cand coach underframes and bogies might have been used instead. 

 

Yellow buffer beams, and 4-character headcode panels let into the tender rear and on the framing ahead of the smokeboxes.  The yellow warning panels, small and large, may have not been considered necessary on steam locos, but my feeling is that they would have been adopted at least in the syp form because it had, by the mid 60s, become the norm to see a yellow panel on an approaching train.  The locos would, of course, have been filthy most of the time and livery would have been academic, but the warning panels and headcode displays would have been kept clean.

 

Classes left in service after 1970 would have been 9Fs for MGR and possibly a number or Standard 5MTs, and 4MT 4-6-0s where route availabillity was an issue.  All other classes would have been either extinct or in preservation by then, their work having been taken on by new diesel and electric locos and multple units.  The later series of Class 20s, D83xx, would have probably not been built.

 

The MGR colliery-power station flows were in Yorkshire, Lancashire, the East Midlands (including work to Didcot) and South Wales, and these are the areas where I would have expected the 9Fs to be deployed.  In the mid 70s there were MGR flows to Didcot of imported coal through the Bristol Channel ports, Barry, Cardiff, Newport, and Avonmouth, that I would also expect to have seen 9Fs working.  On the WR class 47s were used for this actual work, but pairs of 20s were the norm elsewhere.

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

  Any steam locos in a world in which they were not a temporary fixture in 1966 would surely have been given the corporate identity, which would have meant plain blue livery with the arrows of indecision and the D400 type of font for numbers. 

My point is that if there had been any significant number is steam locos with with a long expected remaining lifespan in the mid/ late 60s, the corporate image would have been somewhat different. The arrows might have been part of it, but the locomotives would be more likely to be black than blue. A significant change to what the corporate image was due to be applied to would be expected to have an impact upon what that image was.

 

Holding onto steam might have delayed the rebrand until the 1970s, and all the aesthetic fashions of that era might have been in play...

Edited July 11, 2021 by Zomboid
Autocorrect doesn't know what I want to say

[Gibbo675]

22 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

The 'corporate identity' was a very strong part of the 'British Rail' rebranding, and was an all encompassing image and font that covered everything from locomotives to plastic teaspoons and exanded poly cups.  Any steam locos in a world in which they were not a temporary fixture in 1966 would surely have been given the corporate identity, which would have meant plain blue livery with the arrows of indecision and the D400 type of font for numbers.  I would imagine that smokeboxes and everything that was painted black prior to 1966 would still be painted black, but there is a possibility that the brown used on loco cand coach underframes and bogies might have been used instead. 

 

Yellow buffer beams, and 4-character headcode panels let into the tender rear and on the framing ahead of the smokeboxes.  The yellow warning panels, small and large, may have not been considered necessary on steam locos, but my feeling is that they would have been adopted at least in the syp form because it had, by the mid 60s, become the norm to see a yellow panel on an approaching train.  The locos would, of course, have been filthy most of the time and livery would have been academic, but the warning panels and headcode displays would have been kept clean.

 

Classes left in service after 1970 would have been 9Fs for MGR and possibly a number or Standard 5MTs, and 4MT 4-6-0s where route availabillity was an issue.  All other classes would have been either extinct or in preservation by then, their work having been taken on by new diesel and electric locos and multple units.  The later series of Class 20s, D83xx, would have probably not been built.

 

The MGR colliery-power station flows were in Yorkshire, Lancashire, the East Midlands (including work to Didcot) and South Wales, and these are the areas where I would have expected the 9Fs to be deployed.  In the mid 70s there were MGR flows to Didcot of imported coal through the Bristol Channel ports, Barry, Cardiff, Newport, and Avonmouth, that I would also expect to have seen 9Fs working.  On the WR class 47s were used for this actual work, but pairs of 20s were the norm elsewhere.

Hi Johnster,

 

There was one year in the late 1960's, probably 1968, when more pilot scheme diesels were sent to the scrap yard than steam locomotives so I don't think shortage of traction of any type was a particular issue. Following on from that period, compounded with economic down turns in the 1970's, quite a few of the smaller classes were placed into store. So with diesels spare there would be no way in my view that steam locomotives would have survived much past 1968. Gloomy perhaps, however very possibly accurate.

 

Gibbo.

[John Besley]

42 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Johnster,

 

There was one year in the late 1960's, probably 1968, when more pilot scheme diesels were sent to the scrap yard than steam locomotives so I don't think shortage of traction of any type was a particular issue. Following on from that period, compounded with economic down turns in the 1970's, quite a few of the smaller classes were placed into store. So with diesels spare there would be no way in my view that steam locomotives would have survived much past 1968. Gloomy perhaps, however very possibly accurate.

 

Gibbo.

Having said which why didnt BR sell some of the Standards to the likes of Turkey etc. .... 

[Clive Mortimore]

7 hours ago, Zomboid said:

BR blue was designed for the diesel and electric era. It would have represented a break from the old dirty coal burning days. If steam had been retained in any form it's highly unlikely a rebrand would have been in the form that it was.

 

I'd imagine and residual steam engines would have been black, and who knows about the carriages. Most colours work with black locos!

In the early 1960s ICI found a blue pigment that did fade quickly. At the time Dr Beeching was their chairman. Hopefully he got mates rates when he brought buckets loads of it for BR.

 

Conspiracy theory....conflict of interest (Beeching was still a major share holder in ICI) 

[rodent279]

57 minutes ago, John Besley said:

Having said which why didnt BR sell some of the Standards to the likes of Turkey etc. .... 

Probably because they didn't want to admit there was still life in them.

[The Johnster]

There may be something in this.  BR had developed a post 1955 culture in which the mantra 'diesel/electric good, steam bad' had become all-pervading, and there was an anti-steam agenda that went far beyond the requirement to scrap and modernise.  Anyone who was involved in the preservation movement in those days will bear this out; BR in many instances were highly uncooperative and charged higher than reasonable prices for moving locomotives or retaining connections to do so.  Not all, and much seemed to be dependent on the managers concerned, and in some cases the staff.  For instance, when David Sheperd, the artist, bought 92203 and 75029, he was allowed to have them delivered to Diss, where they were to be kept in those days, under their own steam.  The locos came close to running out of coal on the delivery run because the BR shed staff had, without being asked, stashed a huge amount of spares for the two locos from the shed stores, including bearings, motion, and much else that would have been difficult and expensive to acquire otherwise had it ever been needed.

 

Some of it can be put down to a natural reluctance to deal with amateurs, and enthusiasts like David Sheperd or Alan Pegler had the advantage of being able to deal with the railway at Board level, where they were in a position to be listened to as opposed to being dismissed as certain others were.  But there really was a feeling that steam was to be discouraged as well as got rid of as rapidly as possible, to the extent that when Pendennis Castle melted it's firebars at 96mph on the famous run in 1964, there were allegations of deliberate sabotage.  The point here was that whether these were founded or not, and they probably weren't, there was a massive amount of no support whatsoever for the idea that, no, BR would never do anything like that, because everybody knew that there were people in the managerial grades who would have done it in a heartbeat; it would have improved their career prospects!

 

I think it was in 1963 that there was a news article in the Express or perhaps it was the Mail under the heading 'Red Duchess to the Rescue' or something like that, when a D200 on the up Royal Scot failed climbing Shap; and Duchess of Hamilton was pinched off her parcels working to take the train on to, I think it was Stafford at the time that was the changeover point for electric traction, making enough time up to give the electric the chance for a right time arrival at Euston; BR were much embarrassed by press coverage from reporters that happened to have been travelling on the train anyway (in the bar, no doubt) of an episode they should have been very proud of.  Not long after, the Warship on the down 'Bristolian' gave up the ghost at Didcot, where the only loco immediately available was a 28xx that was one of the oldest main line locos on the WR.  This got the train up to over 60mph through Swindon, and an off duty diesel fitter who ahd volunteered his services at Didcot got the Warship running coming down Dauntsey Bank, resulting in the 28xx being pushed at very high speeds for the rest of the journey.  Arrival at Temple Meads was close to right time, and a crew of fitters with oxy cutting gear were in attendance in expectation of 2807's motion being siezed up.  In the event, while the loco had run quite warm, she made her way to Barrow Lane under her own power and worked a freight back up to Didcot later in the day.

 

Everybody concerned was instructed not to mention the affair to the local press or radio/tv in order to hide the shame, on pain of dismissal, but again, it seems to me that having locomotives of that age that could step into the breach at short notice and put up such a performance would be something to shout about from the rooftops.  But the exploit was 'off-message', and that was that.  The story crops up in one of Adrian Vaughan's books, but I also heard it from a Bristol driver who had been on the down pilot at T.M. that day, and was instructed to stand by to haul the dead 28xx out of the way.

[Murican]

Does anyone know how many of the additional BR Standards were ordered, but never built? As in, how many more 5MTs and 9Fs were ordered?

 

I'm asking for research on more of my imaginary locomotives. Despite the artistic liberties I've taken to enable their existence, I like to keep the numbering schemes somewhat realistic.

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

There may be something in this.  BR had developed a post 1955 culture in which the mantra 'diesel/electric good, steam bad' had become all-pervading, and there was an anti-steam agenda that went far beyond the requirement to scrap and modernise.  Anyone who was involved in the preservation movement in those days will bear this out; BR in many instances were highly uncooperative and charged higher than reasonable prices for moving locomotives or retaining connections to do so.  Not all, and much seemed to be dependent on the managers concerned, and in some cases the staff.  For instance, when David Sheperd, the artist, bought 92203 and 75029, he was allowed to have them delivered to Diss, where they were to be kept in those days, under their own steam.  The locos came close to running out of coal on the delivery run because the BR shed staff had, without being asked, stashed a huge amount of spares for the two locos from the shed stores, including bearings, motion, and much else that would have been difficult and expensive to acquire otherwise had it ever been needed.

 

Some of it can be put down to a natural reluctance to deal with amateurs, and enthusiasts like David Sheperd or Alan Pegler had the advantage of being able to deal with the railway at Board level, where they were in a position to be listened to as opposed to being dismissed as certain others were.  But there really was a feeling that steam was to be discouraged as well as got rid of as rapidly as possible, to the extent that when Pendennis Castle melted it's firebars at 96mph on the famous run in 1964, there were allegations of deliberate sabotage.  The point here was that whether these were founded or not, and they probably weren't, there was a massive amount of no support whatsoever for the idea that, no, BR would never do anything like that, because everybody knew that there were people in the managerial grades who would have done it in a heartbeat; it would have improved their career prospects!

 

I think it was in 1963 that there was a news article in the Express or perhaps it was the Mail under the heading 'Red Duchess to the Rescue' or something like that, when a D200 on the up Royal Scot failed climbing Shap; and Duchess of Hamilton was pinched off her parcels working to take the train on to, I think it was Stafford at the time that was the changeover point for electric traction, making enough time up to give the electric the chance for a right time arrival at Euston; BR were much embarrassed by press coverage from reporters that happened to have been travelling on the train anyway (in the bar, no doubt) of an episode they should have been very proud of.  Not long after, the Warship on the down 'Bristolian' gave up the ghost at Didcot, where the only loco immediately available was a 28xx that was one of the oldest main line locos on the WR.  This got the train up to over 60mph through Swindon, and an off duty diesel fitter who ahd volunteered his services at Didcot got the Warship running coming down Dauntsey Bank, resulting in the 28xx being pushed at very high speeds for the rest of the journey.  Arrival at Temple Meads was close to right time, and a crew of fitters with oxy cutting gear were in attendance in expectation of 2807's motion being siezed up.  In the event, while the loco had run quite warm, she made her way to Barrow Lane under her own power and worked a freight back up to Didcot later in the day.

 

Everybody concerned was instructed not to mention the affair to the local press or radio/tv in order to hide the shame, on pain of dismissal, but again, it seems to me that having locomotives of that age that could step into the breach at short notice and put up such a performance would be something to shout about from the rooftops.  But the exploit was 'off-message', and that was that.  The story crops up in one of Adrian Vaughan's books, but I also heard it from a Bristol driver who had been on the down pilot at T.M. that day, and was instructed to stand by to haul the dead 28xx out of the way.

 

It's quite instructive of the attitudes of the time, that a major capital resource (and a working locomotive, of any description must surely have had that status) should have been put at risk of catastrophic mechanical failure for the sake of a single passenger working 

[AlfaZagato]

I think some of the shame mentioned in the stories you mentioned, @The Johnster, was the fact both locos you mentioned were hold-overs from predecessor companies.    Locos BR had spent the past 30 years crying were obsolete and needed to be released post-haste.  

 

I'll tell ya, we weren't proud when the fancy new Volvo rig needed to spotted by the old nonturbo Mack.

[rockershovel]

My recollections of rail travel in the 1973-90 period were that BR had not gone far enough in its vision of modernisation, that dieselisation was compromised by the retention of loco-hauled carriage stock. After all, the quite brilliant HST125 was in Service by 1974(?) and completely overshadowed the increasingly decrepit LHCS fleet. There was, however, a lack of comparable vision regarding multiple units fit for services of 45-120 minutes duration which extended well into the electrification period. 

 

My "Best Buy" in the early 1980s was a Swedish Army parka and ski cap. For hanging around for indeterminate periods on winter station platforms or travelling on draughty, decrepit LHCS with no working heating (sometimes, no lights either) it was without equal... 

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by rockershovel

[The Johnster]

Not so much a lack of vision as a lack of money to replace older stock; the dmus were pretty rough by then and had to wait for replacement by the Sprinter generation.  The airco mk2s were pretty good, and many mk1s had been refurbished during the late 60s and given 100mph B4 bogies.  Slam door stock on the Southern was similarly retained well past it’s ‘sell by’.  
 

It took a long time to turn things around and of course as soon as profits started to be made privatisation came along.  There are still big problems with overcrowding (which will return when the covid restrictions are lifted) and trains that are too short to handle the traffic, but the current stock situation is basically fit for purpose, and comfortable enough if you can get a seat. 

[Suzie]

I just cannot imagine what a BR steam loco would look like in corporate blue in the 1970s

 

 

https://photos.smugmug.com/Narrow-Gauge-Railways/Rheidol/i-B8cHrp2/0/21f9d76a/XL/vr7-XL.jpg

[JimC]

10 hours ago, Murican said:

I'm asking for research on more of my imaginary locomotives. Despite the artistic liberties I've taken to enable their existence, I like to keep the numbering schemes somewhat realistic.

One option might be to look up what classes each would replace, and start there. For example if you counted up all the 8 coupled freight engines in service around 1948 and round up to the next thousand then that ought to give an absolute maximum for 9Fs.

[Flying Pig]

10 hours ago, rockershovel said:

My recollections of rail travel in the 1973-90 period were that BR had not gone far enough in its vision of modernisation, that dieselisation was compromised by the retention of loco-hauled carriage stock. After all, the quite brilliant HST125 was in Service by 1974(?) and completely overshadowed the increasingly decrepit LHCS fleet.

 

I'm not sure that makes sense, as there were plenty of new air-conditioned carriages at the start of that period, including of course the loco-hauled versions of the Mk3, which I doubt were distinguishable from an HST by the average passenger.  By the end of the period, both West and East Coast Main Lines were running with DVTs, so operationally unit trains.  Both HST and push-pull of course keep the noisy engines away from the passenger compartments, unlike most DMUs.

 

Intermediate services to some extent returned to loco-hauled working from the late 1970s as the early inter-city and cross country units became very tired.  As @The Johnster says, that period ended with the arrival of Sprinters and then Turbostars after privatisation, but that was a mixed blessing for the passenger.  Services from East Anglia to the Midlands and North West (what was then known as Cross Country) went from 31/4s which were distinctly underpowered to decidedly quicker 156s, but the change from a Mk2 TSO or even downrated first to cramped 2+3 seating in the Super Sprinter was much less welcome.

 

Where modernisation really didn't go far enough of course was in the slow progress of electrification.

 

1 hour ago, Suzie said:

I just cannot imagine what a BR steam loco would look like in corporate blue in the 1970s

 

Plenty online to find, like this Britannia and one or two RMweb threads:

 

 

 

[Murican]

51 minutes ago, JimC said:

One option might be to look up what classes each would replace, and start there. For example if you counted up all the 8 coupled freight engines in service around 1948 and round up to the next thousand then that ought to give an absolute maximum for 9Fs.

Good advice. Although I question whether that many 9Fs would indeed be build. Even if my universe has the Modernization Plan delayed until 1960.

[Murican]

1 hour ago, JimC said:

One option might be to look up what classes each would replace, and start there. For example if you counted up all the 8 coupled freight engines in service around 1948 and round up to the next thousand then that ought to give an absolute maximum for 9Fs.

Thing is, I recall seeing a list of ordered BR Standards that were never built. Not just for the Standard 6, but other engines.

 

Know though I can't remember where I saw said list.

[BernardTPM]

28 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

Services from East Anglia to the Midlands and North West (what was then known as Cross Country) went from 31/4s which were distinctly underpowered to decidedly quicker 156s, but the change from a Mk2 TSO or even downrated first to cramped 2+3 seating in the Super Sprinter was much less welcome.

Super Sprinters & Sprinter Express (155/156/158) all had 2+2 seating.

 

I agree though that the various push-pull loco/coaches/DVT operations were a superior option (in terms of comfort) for long distances. It would have been much harder to upgrade the passenger accomodation in Mk.1 EMUs to Mk.2 aircon./Mk.3 levels. In this respect even the well regarded Clacton units were hardly up to Inter-City standards by the 1980s.

[Flying Pig]

13 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

Super Sprinters & Sprinter Express (155/156/158) all had 2+2 seating.

 

I definitely rode from Stowmarket to Peterborough in late 1996 in 2+3 seating and I've always believed the train was the usual 156.  Would a 150 substitution have been likely?

[ScottishRailFanatic]

Presenting, a streamlined mixed-traffic loco, the A4-4-4 (H3)!